1) Most importantly, practice it out loud. Do it about 20 times and you'll be comfortable enough to deliver it with only glances at note cards. 90% of being nervous comes from not knowing what you're going to do or say.
2) Second most important, make it relevant to your audience. Have you ever tried to carry on a conversation with someone you knew wasn't interested in what you had to say? It's the only thing that to this day still makes me nervous. I've given network neutrality speeches to college students in liberal arts programs, and the thing that works here is heavy use of metaphors. I had the single most attractive girl from class walk up to me at a bar later that week and she told me that she told all her friends how serious network neutrality is. I was baffled.
3) There are actually a set of rules you can follow, giving presentations can be seen as more of a science now (even the part about making your presentations entertaining is written in there). Take a class in school, or two. You really need to learn how to get up in front of large crowds and talk confidently about something. Don't let fear be your reason not to do it.
Apropos of nothing, I started doing competitive forensics in 8th grade to get over a speech impediment and generic social anxiety, and continued doing it through college. It worked like a charm.
I never considered using the same techniques for, e.g., chatting up young ladies until about this year. Works like a charm. Effity I wish I had realized that ten years ago. (Some of the techniques, anyhow. The whole play-to-crush ethos, not so much. Eye contact? Sounding confident of what you are saying? Intently listening and coming back to things you've both said later in the conversation for emphasis? They work great.)
I'm a big fan of toastmasters (it gets mentioned towards the bottom). First they get you to deal with nervousness. Then they train you. It's amazingly painless. All with an organization that very much resembles open-source, UGC, etc.
If you want to learn how to speak without doing potentially stressful presentations in front of audiences that matter (professors, bosses) or spending $$ on Dale Carnegie courses or not-too-effective audiences (your cat), I highly recommend Toastmasters.
Toastmasters is highly effective because most everyone there wants to help you improve your public speaking skills. It is an environment for learning and failing without consequences. You can't learn public speaking without an audience, and the Toastmasters club audience is probably the best audience for newbies starting out (e.g. the experienced speakers there emphathise and help you because they were in your position months or years ago)
If anything, you will learn to stop using fillers (umming/ahhing). Pauses ... can be so much more effective). Why? Because someone at each meeting sits there and countseveryone's verbal fidgeting. What can't be measured, can't be improved. Add in public shame and that goes a long, long way. To this day, I am shocked at people two/three levels above me who obviously never worked on their verbal or even non-verbal tics. If you practice, Toastmasters builds unconscious competence in eliminating certain things that may distract the audience (umming, arm swinging, clapsed hands).
The best part of Toastmasters is called Table Topics - where you have to give an impromptu answer to a question. 1-2 minutes. Like some public speaking opportunities are, off the cuff and unrehearsed.
After every speech you give, members will write encouraging comments and feeback on little slips of paper. I still have those little slips of paper in an album somewhere. They still make me feel good. Our club had a video camera - I had all my speeches videotaped. Wow, the camera does not lie - my posture sucked and I rocked my arms [all distractions from your speaking]. And, it is clearly visible to see the progress you make from speech #1 (your icebreaker) to #10.
I highly recommend finding a club that you like (not all clubs are alike) - especially one where no one from your workplace will be (a freer environment to learn public speaking).
I dove into the Toastmasters program. I put a lot into it (VP Membership, mentoring, contests) and got a lot from it. Lastly, I've made some friends (mostly entrepreneurial) through TM that I would not likely have encountered in my normal life. TM brings together some pro-active individuals.
Sure sounds like open source. Many eyes, comfortable/safe environment, continuous improvement. My club (http://ottawatoastmasters.com) has another impromptu speaking opportunity called "As I See It" which is closer to actual debating than Table Topics (2 people argue for a topic and 2 against, there's a 1.5 minute preso from each, then a 30 second rebuttal from each). I'm totally addicted to that part.
I like the way it melds impromptu with non-impromptu (quick prep, speech, then rebuttal). I'm not active with my club anymore (moved out of geo area/moved on) but I will send on that suggestion.
Have you ever done a Table Topics dinner? Dinner at a restaurant and each person has to speak for 2-3 min. while the dinner is being served.
Not yet. I've done a fair amount of public speaking, but I'm new to toastmasters. What's amazing is that after 3 months of weekly meetings, I'm actually enjoying what I saw before as something scary and challenging. I think, frankly, that it's just about repetition. At digg, they trotted me out twice a year, and there was a ton of pressure. Now I talk every week, and I feel comfortable, and it's fun.
The ONE thing I never liked was the corny part where they did joke of the day. It's not funny when you're there trying to give a joke. It's like asking someone to tickle you.
Other than that, Toastmasters is really good. Don't need it if your school gives classes, but it never hurts.
By the way, I can vouch for Owen's speaking abilities =)
Owen blushes and is curious of where you saw me. Given the geography, I'm guessing Reflections/Projections. I was weak then!
Coincidentally I did joke of the day for the first time last week and mostly concur with your opinion.
Probably the best speaking experience I gained was when I stood up in front of 57 students twice a week for a full semester. With the power of life or death (aka A-F) comes responsiblity.
Also I should mention, since it's been part of the whole toastmasters motivation and stuff, and since everyone here seems to enjoy me talking about digg, I'm giving a _keynote_ at dpc (Dutch PHP Conference) in June entitled "Digg: The First Two Years":
http://www.phpconference.nl/
It should be pretty good, because I'm totally beyond the control of Digg PR. Though I will try to be fair and balanced about what actually was a great experience.
I've been scared to watch it. But I loved that conference, basically because there was less pressure, and it had really interesting but offbeat speakers, namely Steve Yegge and Randall Monroe (xkcd.com). I felt privileged to be there but not pressured to perform.
Bizarre article. I'm British and in analyzing my speaking recently discovered I um and ah a lot and have been trying to conquer it. I hear it a lot in speakers over here too, as much as in American speakers. Not sure about all this British vs American forming words "on the lips" or "in the throat" malarkey..
It's a generalization, but he's on to something. I've heard it described as Americans having "lazy lips." We do tend to slur our words, and we're so used to it, that it sounds normal.
For example, most Americans leave out the "a" in orange, so it sounds like we're saying "ornge." Another example would be that I tend to say the word hospital as "hos-pit-al" which sounds strange to a lot of other Midwesterners who are used to the "hos-pittle" pronunciation.
But having said that, it seems like stretch to say that it affects the speech patterns he's talking about.
The experience of teaching improved my public speaking significantly. I think most people hate public speaking because the initial experiences they have are for short periods of time when they're nervous and full of adrenaline.
That adrenaline surge burns off pretty fast though. Physiologically you just can't sustain it and (at worst) within about 15-20 minutes you relax. When you teach a class that may be several hours or days long, that means you're relaxed for the vast majority of the time. I think that experience conditioned me to be more relaxed for public speaking in general.
"First, put the fingers of one hand on your throat when you speak. If you can feel your vocal cords vibrating, then you are definitely a throat speaker."
This is utter gibberish. Your vocal cords vibrate when you articulate voiced consonants and vowels. It doesn't matter what language or dialect you speak, it's a fundamental element of all human speech.
I've been speaking publicly since I was little kid. And at university my CS program required exactly one theater class, not any theater class but... you guessed it, public speaking.
There are a lot of great ways to learn how to be a good public speaker and everyone should try to improve, however I have never heard of this throat vs mouth thing.
I am not saying it's not true, I've never tried it. All I am saying is, there is a plethora of resources on public speaking and this is just one of them. If it doesn't work for you, don't get discouraged.
Another possible explanation for British vs American speaking might be cultural.
I am not sure about British school but in a lot of European schools, oral exams are just as much part of the daily curriculum as pop quizzes are in American.
Add to that a difference is how positively or negative a culture views "aahs" and "uhhms", and that can explain a lot.
This article seems to boil down to the idea that you need to enunciate clearly. I find some of the explanations of throat speaking VS. Mouth speaking to be suspect. The sound originates in the vocal chords and is shaped by the mouth no matter how you speak.
A really nice read. But, I really have no experience on public speaking at all. But, I am sure that this is one of the skills that every programmer needs.
Only programmer who can express his idea properly can be considered as good programmer.
The big problem for me had always been speaking anxiety. I was terrified to get up in front of people and talk. And then, suddenly, I was not. I have no idea how to induce this change in others, but I assure you that it made a far bigger improvement in my speaking style than any change in intonation.
If you want to do what the article says, just listen to someone British for a while and then try reading some words aloud, enunciating carefully. Try to be as "accentless" as possible, whatever what may mean in your area. This becomes habit after a little while.
It's entirely about experience, and the threshold for each person is different. And as experience goes, there's always new challenges. You might not be nervous now, but I bet if you got put in front of a large enough crowd (think Obama-sized) it would come back. But even then it's about experience, you learn to make it work for you.
The article seems to be saying that you can improve your speaking by moving your lips more. Although a lot of people could stand to speak more slowly, this advice will really only take you so far. Rehearsing and using hand gestures freely will take you farther.
we don't even know the meaning of our words, we are just using patterns and popular memes to express ourselves.
first we should reflect on the meaning of words, then the speaking itself will become poetry.
1) Most importantly, practice it out loud. Do it about 20 times and you'll be comfortable enough to deliver it with only glances at note cards. 90% of being nervous comes from not knowing what you're going to do or say.
2) Second most important, make it relevant to your audience. Have you ever tried to carry on a conversation with someone you knew wasn't interested in what you had to say? It's the only thing that to this day still makes me nervous. I've given network neutrality speeches to college students in liberal arts programs, and the thing that works here is heavy use of metaphors. I had the single most attractive girl from class walk up to me at a bar later that week and she told me that she told all her friends how serious network neutrality is. I was baffled.
3) There are actually a set of rules you can follow, giving presentations can be seen as more of a science now (even the part about making your presentations entertaining is written in there). Take a class in school, or two. You really need to learn how to get up in front of large crowds and talk confidently about something. Don't let fear be your reason not to do it.